132 ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND SAMAR. 0(9:. 5, 



and arc picked up with eafe, in what number the fifn- 

 erman judges convenient. 



The iron-tree, ebony, and dying-wood, grow in 

 every part of the ifland ; and gold dull is found in fome 

 quantity in its more interior regions ; but the monks, 

 in their concern for the morals of the people, have been 

 careful to get this dangerous branch of traffic into their 

 own hands. The Spaniards themfelves are forbidden 

 to refide in the Indian villages, under pretext of pro- 

 tefting the innocence of the natives againft the cor- 

 ruption of European manners. The council at Manilla, 

 however, has lately reftrained, by various regulations, 

 the exorbitant power afflimed by the clergy in thofe 

 iflands. 



It would require the elegant genius of a Virgil or 

 a Theocritus to make the reader conceive the natural 

 advantages of Samar. The country, of all thofe I have 

 yet feen, or that perhaps exift in this planet, the mod 

 eminently beautiful. Hov/ often have I envied the 

 Bifiayans, (for, except the natives of Luconia, it is thus 

 they name all the inhabitants of the Philippine iflcs,) 

 the happy retirement of this little infular paradife ! If 

 in the province of Tegas the mind of the traveller is 

 conftantly roufed and agitated by obje<fts of grandeur 

 and magnificence, in the ifland of Samar he is foothed 

 and enchanted with an elegant and rich difplay of 

 fimple beauty. In the former, the eye flits in fuccef- 

 lion over Nature's ftupenduous works, from the noble, 

 ' but gloomy forefl, to the widely extended plain, bound- 

 ed by the diitant horizon ; and thence to rivers and 

 lakes, the noife and vaft furface of whofe waters are 

 formed to imprcfs the mind with the awful majefty of 

 the Creator. In the latter are the enianations of his 

 goodnefs, fprings, fountains, and rivulets ; landfcapes 

 elegantly compofed by various blendings 01 woods and 

 lawns, curioully interfering each other, as they feem^ 

 to float over the varied afpe£l of the foil. V\''oods, .it 

 is true, without the extent and magnitude of the Te- 



I 



